Welcome to Pixalate’s CTV & Mobile App Manual Reviews According to COPPA, a series containing the detailed factors the Trust & Safety Advisory Board educators used to assess an app’s child-directedness.
The educators manually review thousands of mobile apps available in the Google Play & Apple App Stores as well as connected TV (CTV) apps from The Roku Channel Store and Amazon Fire TV App Store using the COPPA Rule factors shown below & make those results available to the public at ratings.pixalate.com.
This post takes a look at a game which is available from The Roku Channel Store. Our reviewer discusses how the subjective factors set forth in the COPPA Rule apply to the app and factor into the reviewer's determination as to whether the app is child-directed or general audience (i.e., it is not targeting children).
The teacher will indicate the factors they relied upon in their assessment using the 10 factors shown below that reflect the 10 child-directed factors in the COPPA Rule.
The Kids Channel is an educational channel featuring a variety of shows to promote learning and creativity for children. It has many shows that encourage active viewing that enhance learning from screen time such as nursery rhymes, phonic songs, and also popular kid shows. The subject matter in the app states, “We aim to make children’s learning a fun and educational experience.” The visual content has colorful 2D graphics and characters using child-oriented activities. Learning animation in the channel is fun and entertaining for kids to learn numbers, letters, colors, and songs. The channel is geared towards kids as a target audience to make learning fun and help parents plan learning activities. In the About Us section it states, “for your toddlers and let them enjoy hundreds of kids’ favorite songs, stories, phonic songs, and classic nursery rhymes.”
There is no age gate. Once searched on Roku, the app is available to download and use without a subscription but with access to one show. A subscription is required to access the others. It is located in the Kids & Family category in the Roku store.
Privacy
There is no COPPA policy. The developer’s privacy policy states, “We collect the following personal information about you….your name, your email address telephone number, and similar contact details…our web server will collect your IP address and information about your general location…we also collect data about the use of our service and the characteristics and the activities of users…we may collect nonpersonal data…”
Find Pixalate's full catalogue of reviews in our CTV and Mobile App Review Page
Screenshots of The Kids Channel
Pixalate’s Trust and Safety Advisory Board was created to bring in individuals with experience using child-directed apps in the classroom to review and assess which apps are child-directed. This manual review process serves to quality check Pixalate’s automated review process. See our full methodology for more information.
Disclaimer
This blog post published by Pixalate is available for informational purposes only and is not considered legal advice. By viewing this blog post, the reader understands and agrees that there is no attorney-client relationship between the reader and the blog publisher. The blog should not be used as a substitute for legal advice from a licensed professional attorney in the applicable jurisdiction(s), and readers are urged to consult their own legal counsel on any specific legal questions concerning any specific situation. The content of this blog post reflects Pixalate's opinions with respect to factors that Pixalate believes may be useful to the digital media industry. Pixalate's opinions are just that, opinions, which means that they are neither facts nor guarantees; and this blog post is not intended to impugn the standing or reputation of any entity, person or app, but instead, to report findings pertaining to mobile and Connected TV (CTV) apps.
